


you can't tape your life back together, but hey, what's glue for, amirite?

by radbees



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Family Angst, Family Bonding, Gen, I havent really decided on ships tho so dont fight me, Mary centered fic because I love my daughter, also I live for lesbian Mary so haha fight me, and general love for Mary, lets just say theres a lot of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-24 21:25:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14962453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radbees/pseuds/radbees
Summary: Mary knew life sucked.Specifically, her life.Her mother left when she was 7, she'd finally succumbed to her sickness, because, according to her father while he was drunk, her love for her daughter wasn't strong enough to keep her alive. Her brother became distant, and as soon as he turned 14, left for a boarding school out of state, leaving Mary to deal with her poor excuse of a father who never knew how to deal with the loss of his wife or his children.Anyway, if there was anyone who knew how much life sucked, it was Mary.She didn't think things could get any worse, but life has a funny way of surprising people who really just want to be left alone in their own little corner.





	you can't tape your life back together, but hey, what's glue for, amirite?

It was a bright and sunny morning when Mary awoke for the day. A relatively nice day, she noted as she opened up the silk white curtains of her room, an expensive gift from an aunt she'd never met, only to be greeted with a pleasant warmth that spread down to her toes. 

Out in the front garden were an assortment of wild exotic flowers that Old Bolkonsky, as the neighbors and everyone who knew the man liked to call him, insisted on keeping around. Mary couldn't help but love those flowers, their glistening purple, white, and blue petals looked divine in the generously bright and comforting Spring sun. 

Mary squinted her eyes a bit, just enough to see a family of robins trying to teach their baby birds how to fly. Their nest resided in one of the 4 of her family's old, small, thin, and fragile peach trees inherited from her grandparents onto her father, along with the house, of course, that never seemed to stop producing fruit. 

Mary had always enjoyed the fruit as a child, and even now, she liked to reach out from her room and pretend she was grasping at the fruit she once dearly ate. It made her feel like a girl again, small and childish, blissfully unaware of the hardships she'd soon face. It brought her back to a time where her mother still lived, and the way she'd gingerly lift her up into the air to pick a few pieces of the reddish-gold fruit for her and her brother to nibble on while their mother prepared dinner. If Mary thought hard enough, she could almost feel her mother's arms coiling around her waist, lifting her into the air where she could dream and nothing would ever dare hurt the two of them. 

Days like these almost never existed anymore, and, despite herself, Mary found herself smiling when the baby robin eagerly waited in an unorganized line behind its brothers and sisters, hoping to fly soon. A good day, she thought peacefully. 

It was a nice reminder that, hey, maybe life isn't as bad as you think it is, maybe your brother doesn't secretly hate you and hasn't been ignoring you for 9 years, maybe your father isn't slowly going insane, maybe you are normal after all, maybe life doesn't suck, maybe one day you'll stop feeling like a constant burden and disappointment on your family, and maybe one day you'll be able to find a boyfriend to get God and your father off your tired back. 

It really was astonshing how fast a girl's view on the world could change, because suddenly Mary was pulling back the curtains angrily and not making her bed as neatly as she normally did. After all, if her mood was bad, then why should her room, the weather, or anything for that matter, be good?

Mary dressed quickly and packed her things into her brown leather backpack. It was much too early to be heading to school, but Mary wanted nothing more than to get away from her home and its suffocating memories. And if that meant going to St. Margaret's Prep School for Girls where no one liked her and she was dreadfully lonely and desperate, then so be it.

After stopping by her bathroom to brush her hair and teeth, Mary took one last look at her room before closing it and bounding down the stairs. 

 

When Mary arrived at the bottom of the stairs, she didn't exactly expect a warm welcome or a nice, freshly prepared breakfast, but it certainly sounded better than what she had caught her father doing. 

Old Bolkonsky was wearing his signature powdered white wig as he sat at the enormous table in the middle of the kitchen. He was generously showing off his rich, emerald green bathing robe which, according to him, had been knitted by his mother's grandmother especially for himself. 

The old man was hunched over, laughing hysterically with his arms around the table as though he were hiding something. "Something" just happened to be an assortment of extremely illegal drugs, needles, sedatives, and alcohol. 

Mary strode past the kitchen, not waiting her father to shamefully acknowledge her presence, and then for him to guiltily hide his contraband with a nearby towel. 

A couple years back, shortly after her mother died, whenever Mary found her father in this state, she would act timid and stand at the foot of the stairs, not wanting to walk in on something she knew she was not supposed to. She would stand, waiting for her father notice her and to quickly stand, take her hand, and lead her outside, where a personal escort took her to her nearby elementary school. 

But not anymore, no. That was the old Mary, the one who cried whenever her brother left for the school year, the one that was too afraid to ask what her father was doing, the one that had dated and held hands with a boy for 5 minutes before he ditched her to go kiss another girl on the cheek and hold her hand instead, the one that arrived a week late to her new middle school and had been too frightened to introduce herself to the class and ended up sitting alone at lunch for the next 3 months. The new Mary was much daring, braver, tougher, stronger, and guarded. This one practically kicked her brother out every July 31st when he went back to England, this one could care less how her father chose to destroy his own life, this one had zero tolerance for any boy, and this one refused to eat the garbage food her supposedly elite school offered. 

And so, as her father covered his stash bashfully and stuttered some forced conversation about the weather, Mary had already crossed the kitchen, grabbed a granola bar, and was headed towards the door. 

"M-Mary! My girl, w-where a-a-are you h-headed s-s-so early?" called the old man, hobbling towards his daughter shakily. The drugs Bolkonsky consumed had long tampered with his ability to speak properly, and he now possessed a stutter worse than most knew. 

"I'm going to school." was Mary's simple reply as she opened the door. 

"Oh, b-b-but isn't a b-bit t-too early to b-b-be going t-to school!" he cried, finally nearing Mary.

"No." she said, stepping outside, not paying attention to or basking in the sunlight she had been embracing less than 15 minutes ago

And with that, she, without an ounce of regret, slammed the door shut on her father, who had at last ached her at the door.

In a last attempt to spite Mother Nature, Mary kicked one of the peach trees she had learned to despise in the course of a morning. She didn't turn back when the baby bird, who had waited patiently for its brothers and sisters, finally got to fly, fell off the tree, and broke its wing, never to fly again.


End file.
